


-Less

by Kariki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Animal Death, Beheading, Blood, Cannibalism, Demon Summoning, General Darkness and Grossness, Graphic descriptions of violence and death, Hux is Not Nice, Huxloween, Implied Necrophilia, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Necromancy, Non-Graphic Sex, Nudity, Witchcraft, animal cruelty, black magic, headless horseman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 12:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12388083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariki/pseuds/Kariki
Summary: Ben Solo entered the Southern Woods, a place of eternal winter, in search of the Starkiller - a powerful witch that would make him into a monster.





	-Less

**Author's Note:**

> Technically for Huxloween but I was going to write this anyway, I just figured I might as well have a deadline to it!

The dark trunks of the trees towered over the white path like the claws of a monster, ready to wrap around any unwary traveler that dared to go past. The surrounding dead forest was quiet, any lingering noise muffled by the impossible snow that blanketed the Southern Woods.

A magic, evil and all-encompassing, soaked every inch of the land, turning it into an eternal winter even in the midst of summer as it sucked the light out of the very stars above.

Ben Solo tightened his hold on the leather reins, keeping the unnerved horse’s attention on the path. They could not afford to stray, not even a bit. Death awaited everyone and everything who entered the forest, whether they were on the path or not, but Ben wasn’t concerned with that. The path would lead him to the source of the curse on this forest, the witch known as the Starkiller, and Ben was not about to let an inconvenience such as death get in his way.

“Onward, Silence,” Ben muttered to the large black horse under him, both his and the beast’s breath misting out in front of them. Ben had come prepared, wrapped in the thickest furs available, and yet he could still feel the biting cold in his very bones, seeking to drain the life from him. They had traveled the path for a day and a night, not stopping once for rest or food, knowing that to do so would allow the magic around them to seep in further still and consume them. 

They were close now.

The home of the Starkiller appeared through the snowy mist as though it were summoned from the earth itself. The home was unassuming at first, a low stone cottage built at the base of a tree that now wrapped around one half of the construction. It was dark with no windows and with a bear skin to act as a door. A thin, wispy trail of smoke wavered in the air above, the only indication that someone or something lived in the stone building.

There was no sound behind the tinkling of frozen branches brushing against each other, icicles breaking on contact.

Silence pawed at the ground until Ben slid off of his back. He kept his hand wrapped around the reins to stop the horse from running in it came to that and took a few steps forward.

The flash of red was unexpected and shocking after the days of nothing but the black and white of the forest path. 

The man stood at the edge of the forest, the hood of his black cloak down. He wore a simple dark tunic and dark leggings and boots, clothing that should not have been warm enough to survive the frozen forest around them. The man’s sneer was a slash of red in the man’s pale face.

“You should not have come here,” the man called out, taking a step forward out of the forest.

Ben could see the man’s eyes were as cold as the rest of the forest.

“Are you Starkiller?” Ben asked, keeping a tight hold on Silence’s reins. “Are you the witch that curses this land?” 

“Are you the knight that wishes to save it?” the man, the witch known as Starkiller, retorted, his sneer flashing too white teeth.

“No,” Ben shook his head, reaching up to lower his own hood to better show his face. “I’ve come seeking your curse.”

* * *

The inside of the cottage was disappointingly bare. The fire roared high in a large hearth and a pot sat over it, just starting to boil. There was a bed, a chair, and a table. Herbs hung next to the door, beside a dead and skinned hare, waiting to be used.

Ben kept his cloak on, despite the stifling heat of the room, and watched as the witch shed his own outer layer before going over to stir the pot. The fire made the man’s red hair even more hellish and cast his features into sharp shadow and light.

“Why have you come here,” the witch asked, setting aside the wooden spoon he had used to stir the pot.

“I told you, I seek your curse.”

The witch scoffed. “There are easier ways to go about that.” He glared over at Ben. “I’d say you’ve already been cursed with the blight of stupidity. Is that not enough for you?”

Ben squared his shoulders and returned the glare.

The witch huffed and stalked past Ben to snatch the hare from the wall and a cleaver from the table before slapping the carcass down to be butchered.

“I want to be cursed,” Ben repeated, watching as the knife sliced through the hare’s neck, severing the head from the body. 

“Yes, you’ve said.”

“I am Ben Solo, a Prince of -”

“I don’t care,” Starkiller interrupted him as he set about gutting his dinner. “You’re an intruder and a pest. The only reason you’re still alive is for the novelty of someone actively seeking me out and that interest is wearing thin.”

Ben’s scowl deepened and the leather of his gloves creaked as his hand flexed for want of his sword. The witch would have been easy to kill, his slight form offering no real physical threat or defense. He could separate the man’s head from his body as easily as the man did the hare... but then Ben’s journey would have been a waste and his mission a failure.

“I am a murderer,” Ben announced instead, clasping his hands in front of him so that they could not go for the sword at his hip quite so easily if he lost his temper. “In my land, I am the greatest fighter, their strongest warrior. I have gutted and dismembered enemy after enemy, often time for no other reason than they were in my way and their pleading annoyed me.”

That, at least, seemed to have gotten the witch’s attention. He glanced up from his grisly work briefly before continuing to separate the flesh from the bone.

“And...?”

“I have a weakness inside of me,” Ben continued at the prompting, shifting from foot to foot, hearing the wood creak under him. “I have nightmares of blood and ruin and instead of feeling joy each night, I awake feeling terror and grief as though my heart were broken. I wish for this to end so that I can become stronger... merciless. I prayed to God to show me the way and then I prayed to the Devil... I saw your cursed forest and your tiny cottage. I saw the blood color of your hair and the blood on your hands. Can you do this to me or can you not?”

For a moment, there was only the crackle of fire and the steady thud of the knife hitting the wood. Finally, the Starkiller gathered up the hare meat into a bowl before bringing it over to the pot to dump it in. 

“You want to be heartless.” It was a statement, not a question. “You wish to be a monster... a demon set upon this Earth to destroy and gorge yourself on blood?”

He turned to look at him, the fire at his back.

Ben met the man’s glowing, icy gaze.

“I want to be rid of this torment. I want to be rid of this weakness. Take my heart, destroy it... and make me strong.”

The witch studied him for a moment, his red mouth turning down at the corners as he thought. After what seemed like hours, the man spoke. “There is no spell that I know of that can do what you ask,” he said, his words careful and, Ben assumed, well-chosen, “that does not mean I am unwilling to try.”

Outside the small cottage, the forest grew darker and the snow continued to fall, piling up into mounds that never grew bigger but never melted. The man’s smile was just as cold and damning.

* * *

The clearing, so perfectly circular it had to be unnatural, was a few hundred meters from the cottage, hidden in the forest. In the center was a large flat stone and in the center of the stone was a shallow bowl. Stubs of candles, bits of metal and rocks, and other strange items surrounded the large stone, waiting to be used.

It had been over a month, by Ben’s estimate, since he entered the Southern Woods and found his way to the hearth of the Starkiller, or Armitage, as he preferred to be called. He had spent the first few weeks hunting the enchanted forest for the scrawny, sickly game it had to offer as he waited for Armitage’s Master – Snoke, a demon of grotesque physical deformities but of immense power – to instruct them. 

Instruct them he did.

His voice had crept through the forest branches, whispering ice into their minds and hearts. The demon told Ben to retrieve three things and told Armitage what to do with them.

The first two reagents had been simple enough though tricky to obtain.

The head of a great white stag had taken him only a few days to find. The animal, holy and sacred, had been a thing of beauty, a gift to the woods and to the very Earth. Its large form, full of grace and strength, had moved silently through the snow, not making even a hint of a whisper.

If Ben had not been told where to find the stag and if he had not spent those weeks learning the forest and ridding it of more of its life, it would have been impossible to find. The great beast was dead before it could even mourn its oncoming doom. Ben, magically hidden and invisible to all, had only needed to deliver one blow onto the creature’s neck and the deed was done. A few more chops with a wood axe and the head was severed.

He had left the body where it lay, staining the snow bright red with its blood.

The second reagent had been easier still. The forest was full of wolves, just as scrawny and sickly as any of the other animals, and finding a pure black wolf had not been an issue. He did not even need the assistance of magic to track such an animal down. 

The wolf was downed with single arrow shot from his bow, straight into the creature’s icy blue eye.

It had been a bit of a bother to string the animal up so that the blood drained into the special pot Armitage had supplied him with but he had managed.

He left the wolf, much like the stag, where it was, not bothering to cut the carcass down from the oak tree he had tied it to.

The third was the most difficult to obtain, having to venture out of the cursed safety of the forest, but Ben had accomplished it. The last ingredient now waiting in the leather bag at his hip.

Armitage stood in front of the stone, wearing a dark robe that touched the ground. Beside him, on the flat stone, was the deer head, flesh boiled off and the skull a shining white. Bits of bone and teeth hung from the antlers, tied on with string made from gut. At Armitage’s feet was the pot of wolf’s blood, the lid open and its contents, somehow, still steaming.

“Have you brought the last of it?”

Ben untied the bag at his hip and tossed it to the Starkiller who caught it easily.

“Good,” Armitage smiled, setting the bag aside. “We can begin.”

Ben let out a breath he felt he had been holding since he began this quest. A weight was lifted from him, his destiny within reach at last.

Armitage stepped forward and parted his robe, letting it fall into the snow. He was naked underneath, the white of his flesh only a few shades darker than the snow around him, as though he had been scrupled of it and given life. Armitage walked with purpose toward Ben, stopping in front of him. The difference in their height was slight but those icy eyes still had to tilt upward to meet his and Ben took an odd pleasure in that fact. 

“Take your clothes off,” Armitage said, his voice quiet as he reached up to pull at the knot that tied Ben’s cloak shut. “Nothing can be between our bodies and the spell or it can go wrong.”

Ben nodded and shrugged the cloak off before reaching for his belt, looking down to do so. He heard the crunch of snow as Armitage walked away, taking with him the very slight feeling of warmth that Ben had not noticed until it was gone.

Ben made short work of removing his clothing and putting them into a messy pile by his feet. He paused for a moment before removing his fur-lined boots as well, tossing them aside. If Armitage can brave the ice, he would as well.

The witch stood by the stone once more, the pot of steaming blood now in his hands. He turned his back to Ben and began pouring the blood into the shallow bowl in the center of the flat stone.

“Come to me, Ben Solo,” Armitage said as he poured, careful not the spill any of the blood, “Stand by my side.”

The snow crunched under his bare feet as he approached the stone alter and to the red haired man that waited for him. Armitage had finished with the blood and had set the pot aside. Steam still rose from the blood. The witch turned to him and, almost against his will, Ben’s eyes took in the man’s thin body. So very pale and so very thin, any fat on the man’s body seeming to collect around his hips, buttocks, and low on his stomach. His cock, limp, uninterested, and as slender as the rest of him, lay in a nest of red curls. Freckles dotted the man’s skin, a odd scattering of warmth on the snow pale flesh.

“Come here, Ben,” Armitage commanded though his voice was soft. “I need to touch you.”

Ben stepped up to the alter so that he was within arm’s length of the other man. Armitage reached forward and took Ben’s hand in his own. He guided the hand to the pool of blood and dipped it in. The blood was still hot, as though it had gushed from the wolf’s slit throat only seconds before.

“Paint me with it,” Armitage murmured, letting go of Ben’s hand. “Cover me in the blood.”

Ben looked down at his hand, cupped to hold the blood in his palm. He looked at Armitage’s narrow chest. He brought his hand forward and pressed it over Armitage’s heart and dragged his hand down, leaving a streak of red. He dipped his hand back into the blood and repeated the movement on the opposite side. 

It was hypnotic, dipping his hand into the pool of blood that never seemed to go down and using the vile liquid to paint away any trace of humanity in the man in front of him until there was only a monster left, bright red and dripping.

“The skull,” Armitage murmured, his red face looking to the skull that waited within arm’s reach. “Put it on my head.”

Ben nodded and picked the skull up. It was lighter now that the flesh and brains had been removed, even with the might rack still intact. The bottom of the skull was oddly shaped, carved and concave, designed for this purpose.

The skull fit onto Armitage’s head as though it belonged there, sitting low over his face, covering his forehead completely. The antlers made a hollow tickling sound as the bits of bone moved and collided with each other.

Ben took a step back to look at the monster from a child’s nightmare that now stood in front of him. The monster, his long thin limbs all covered in red, somehow seemed so much taller than he actually was, so much more encompassing, with blank, empty eyes that stared out of a stark white skull. 

Armitage held out his red hand and dipped it into the blood.

Ben stepped forward, once again within arm’s reach of both the blood and the inhuman man in front of him, and closed his eyes.

The blood felt searing hot as it was pressed into his icy cold skin. The heat seemed to sink into him, marking him underneath his skin and to his bones, tainting and claiming him with each stroke of Armitage’s hand. His chest, arms, legs, and back were swiftly covered and consumed. Ben felt Armitage’s hands on his neck, both of them now, and he opened his eyes. Beneath the skull he could see the icy green/blue beneath the red of the blood and Ben held onto the sight.

The blood smeared over his face, dripped from his drenched hair, and he wondered if his hair was as red as the witch’s now.

Armitage, after what felt like hours, took a step back, his dripping hands at his sides. The shallow bowl in the middle of the flat stone alter was empty and spotless, as though the blood had never been there.

“The heart,” Armitage said, his voice rough. He was panting, his narrow chest all but heaving. Ben knew the feeling, his heart pounding in his chest as though it knew of its upcoming demise. Armitage reached for the leather bag and opened it.

The heart was unremarkable in the red of Armitage’s skin. It fit perfectly in his hand, small but not too much so. Ben remembered retrieving it just a few days prior though the organ looked as perfect as when he ripped it out of its cage of bone.

He had had to kill the groom first, of course, but it was out of necessity. There was no way he’d have let Ben near his bride without a fight... though it had not been much of a fight to begin with. The bride had screamed until her heart was in his hands and out of her chest.

Now it was in the hands of a blood covered witch.

“You know what to do with it,” Armitage said, his voice part of the wind in the trees. The heart was in the center of both his hands, held out to Ben like an offering.

And Ben did know what he was meant to do.

He took the heart into his own hands once again, holding it firmly but gently, and brought it close.

The taste of metal flooded his mouth and stringy, tough tissue caught in his teeth but he swallowed both and took another bite. He closed his eyes and his insides died.

* * *

The river should have sucked the heat and life out of Him, should have killed Him within minutes, but as He stepped into the water, He felt only cool relief. The water washed away the red, red blood as well as the grime left over from His travel through the forest. He sank down into the icy water and sighed as the unneeded heat of His body was swept away.

He didn’t look up as He felt more than heard the water splash beside Him as the Starkiller joined Him. 

“Ben Solo is dead.” Armitage’s voice was no longer rough, his breathing now normal instead of the frantic pants they had been during the spell. 

“He is,”He agreed, glancing over. The skull was gone from Armitage’s head and the blood was dripping off of him and into the river. He wasn’t sure if they were being cleansed by the water or if they were corrupting it instead.

He felt powerful enough to be corrupt the very earth.

He looked over the witch’s slender, unassuming body. He could shatter this being’s form so easily, break his bones like they were nothing – He had thought so the first time He had seen the man but He knew it would be even easier now.

It was oddly tempting.

“You feel stronger,” Armitage said, stating it as fact. “The spell stole away your weaknesses but that does not mean you are immortal. Even the strongest of things shatter and break.”

“But not I,” He smirked, turning in the water to face the witch. Their lower bodies were free of blood now and, through the clear water, He could see the witch held an interest he had not before. “I could kill you so easily.” He continued, taking a step closer. “The villagers would thank me.”

Armitage snorted. “They’d put your head on a spike and spit in your mouth as they pass by.” 

“They’d wish to,” He nodded, placing His large hands on the witch’s soft hips. “They’d have to kill me first.”

“Snoke whispered to me a name,” Armitage said, tilting his head curiously. He didn’t try to break His hold on him. “He said you would take it.”

“And what is this name?” He asked, pulling the man closer.

“Kylo Ren,” Armitage said the name softly, almost reverently. His hands reached up to rest on Kylo’s forearms, as though he needed the touch to hold him steady. “A dark knight sent to terrorize the world in his name.”

He leaned down until His mouth was a breath away from the witch’s. “And why would I agree to that?” He asked, His breath cold.

“You already have,” Armitage replied before closing the distance between them and lowering them both into the icy water.

Kylo couldn’t remember the trip back to the small, stone cottage but he remembered falling into the witch’s soft bed. He remembered pinning the small man down easily and bending his body the way he wanted it. He remembered fucking the man so hard that the wooden headboard cracked against the stone wall.

He remembered Armitage pulling out the knife and slicing open the palm of his hand and holding it out like a bloody offering. He remembered licking the blood up like syrup. He remembered the blade at his neck and the line of fire as the witch made the shallow cut. He remembered the hot, soft feeling of the man’s tongue as he lapped up his blood.

“Mine,” Armitage breathed against the wound on Kylo’s neck, shuddering as he came, spilling his seed between their bodies.

“No,” Kylo growled, moving harder until the witch wailed under him. “Mine.”

* * * 

The Southern Woods was a cursed place, everyone in the village knew that. The eternal winter that created snow on the hottest of days, the eerie sounds and glow that one experienced at night. They had not believed it could get worse.

Then came the Horseman.

They all recalled the young man – a prince some said – that had gone into the forest looking for the witch that resided in its heart. There had been a hope that the man would destroy the evil and free them of the curse of the woods but that hope was soon dashed.

The witch had stolen the prince’s soul and had filled the space left behind with a darkness.

The man had returned from the forest only to slaughter a wedding party, beheading the groom and ripping the bride’s heart from her chest.

The villagers had watched as the man, dressed all in black, rode his large black horse back into the forest with his vile prize. They say the horse’s hooves were aflame and joyous laughter had echoed through the night. There was no goodness left in the man that might have been a prince.

For over a year, the village lived in fear of the Horseman’s raids. Usually, he only took food and supplies from them, killing anyone who stood in his way, but other times, he took only lives. Spell components, some villagers theorized, for the Horseman’s master.

The village lived in fear of the next night of terror and what the evil duo in the cursed woods would do to them next... but fear never lasts. People will only cower and weep for so long until they start to think that they have nothing more to lose. People with nothing to lose are far more powerful than their oppressors ever want to admit.

And so it happened, a few days before the Harvest Moon, a group of able-bodied villagers, twenty in all, gathered and prepared. They put on their heaviest winter garb and took up whatever weapon they could find and set out to end their terror.

They journeyed a day and they journeyed a night, deeper into the ever freezing forest. They knew their presence would not be hidden for long but they could see the hint of smoke rising above the trees.

The attack was swift and unexpected.

The lumbering beast of a horse, black as soot but with eyes that blazed with demon fire bore down on them, charging from the depths of the thick, leafless trees to trample two of them in one leap. The rider did not lose his grip on the large sword as it swept down toward his victims, slicing limbs and necks as it passed by.

The man was fierce, so different from the unassuming man they had glimpsed what seemed like so very long ago. The man’s skin had paled to that of snow, making the odd moles that dotted his face stand out even more. His wide mouth was open, his teeth bared in murderous joy as blood splattered onto him.

But the men, their numbers already decimated, were not to be driven off, not this day. 

One of the men had brought the scythe they used to harvest their fields and, with a swing perfected from a lifetime of use, brought the blade down low but sure, slicing into the horse’s legs. The horse known only as Silence fell, its front legs severed and useless, and its rider was thrown over its large head.

The Horseman let out a roar that was both furious and mournful. The blade flashed in the dimming light, splattering red with each arch but he was still only one man.

The gunshot rang through the forest, shattering the silence as well as the Horseman’s chest. The man dropped to one knee, an arm reaching up to cover the hole in his side. He roared again and, for a moment, he almost got back to his feet. The remaining men surged forward and pushed him to the ground. They grabbed the bloodied sword out of his hand and held his arms.

The man’s head came off with one powerful slice and rolled a few feet away, leaving a trail of blood in the snow. 

The forest screamed.

None of the men had ever seen the Starkiller, having only heard the tales of the evil man that haunted their nightmares, but here he was now, appearing in the center of them in a swirl of ice and hatred. The witch, a being of white, black, and red lifted his arms and the trees groaned. The needle-sharp branches lashed out, thrusting and grabbing. The men who tried to run had their ankles wrapped with roots, stopping them so completely that the bones in their legs shattered as they fell onto sharpened stakes that grew out the forest floor. Men who tried to fight back had wooden limbs thrust into their bodies, into their throats, their mouths, their eyes.

The witch’s scream echoed through the Southern Woods, into it and out of it until every living thing under its branches stopped moving, painting the snow red in revenge. The men were dead as were any villager that had lingered too close to the woods, waiting for their loved ones to return, as were any creature that had somehow eked out an existence in the cursed woods.

The witch stepped over the bodies of his would-be murderers and knelt down in the snow. He pulled his lover’s head into his lap and his sobs shook the entire forest. He held the head up to his face, taking in the lifeless face of Kylo Ren.

“But not you,” Armitage whispered as ice started to fall from the sky and from his eyes. He pressed his lips to the slack lips of his lover before tucking the head close, wrapping his cloak around it as though to shelter it.

He had work to do.

* * * 

The skull, free of flesh and skin and blood, sat in the center of a circle made of ash and bones, the only remains of his killers. Dried herbs and flowers, collected outside of the safe haven of his Southern Woods but necessary, were placed with loving care around the skull.

The Horseman waited at the edge of the clearing while Silence pawed at the ground beside him. The horse was eager to run, to chase, to stomp and trample and sprint and live. The Horseman ran a hand over the horse’s neck to calm him.

Armitage took the bronze knife and sliced open his thumb and pressed the blood into the forehead of the skull.

“What is lost,” he said softly, to the wind and to the blood, “will return to me. What is mine will remain.” he leaned forward and kissed the bloody mark on the skull. “As long as my blood runs in this forest, we shall never die.”

A shudder ran through the forest as the spell was renewed for another year, until the night of the Horseman’s Fall came about once again.

 _Armitage,_ the Horseman now approached. _The moon is high and I want..._

“For what?” Armitage asked, standing up away from the alter to approach the headless man waiting for him. “For blood or for me?”

 _Is there a difference?_ Armitage could feel the man’s smirk though there was no flesh to show it. The Headless Horseman grabbed the witch as soon as he was close enough and pulled him against his body. 

“No, I suppose there’s not,” Armitage sighed and rested his head against the man’s shoulder. “I wish to see you raid the village. I want to see the blood on the streets and the heads on spikes...”

 _Such a vengeful thing you are._ The Horseman, his strong arms wrapped around the waist of the witch, leapt onto Silence and sat the witch in front of him, sideways across his lap. _After our revenge I desire a more... traditional celebration of my renewed life.”_

“Insatiable even now.”

Silence dashed through the Southern Woods, running down trails that no mortal could hope to see much less traverse. The claws of the trees waved in the wind as the eternal snow and ice fell from the sky, piling into mounds that never grew but never melted. There was a village outside of the forest, usually a day and a night’s travel for a mortal being but these beings were not mortal.

The Headless Horseman was riding and the Witch of the Southern Woods rode with him and blood would be spilled this night to the delight of these two demons.


End file.
